Inside the Philippines most notorious prison that houses 3,800 inmates

ASTOUNDING images reveal the lives of the 3,800 inmates behind the bars of Quezon City Jail in Manilla.

The squalid prison in the Philippine's capital city was built for just 800 but is now at almost five times the capacity, leaving inmates stewing in filth.

Lags sleep in shifts on stairways, a basketball court floor and hammocks fashioned from old blankets in the six decade old jailhouse.

The inmates can be seen washing themselves in the same water they clean there clothes, right next to where they cook in the overcrowded jail.

But some joy manages to break through the squalor and cramped conditions as they take part in group dancing competitions in their regulation yellow uniforms on the cracked open air basketball court.

The jail houses prisoners awaiting trial and one former inmate has returned after studying criminal justice in the USA.

Raymund Narag says when he was 20-years-old he was falsely accused of murder and spent seven years in a cell with 30 other men which was built for just five.

During his time behind bars Raymund lived on  a diet of dried fish which he claims left him on the edge of starvation.

Now a Doctor of Criminal Justice having studied at Michigan State University, Dr Narag is now an assistant professor at the Southern Illinois University.

He returned to his former cage to study how Filipino prisons can be reformed.

Talking of his life behind bars, he has said: "I saw firsthand the intricacies of managing a crowded, underfunded, undermanned prison institution."

Dr Narang has said the food is not only inadequate but inmates can often find rusty nails and cockroaches leaving it inedible.

It is also served at irregular intervals at odd times of the day, making it impossible for them to gain any sense of routine to cope with the squalor.

The horrific conditions can cause serious health difficulties for the lags which can cause nasty rashes and boils to erupt on their skin.

Some of the men are even said to have suffered strokes as a result of sleeping in a squatted position.

Dr Narag said: "Inmates are prone to contagious diseases because of the poor living conditions in their cells.

"They sleep in overcrowded, poorly ventilated cells. The supply of potable water is very limited. Food rations have inadequate nutritional content. Sick and healthy inmates are grouped in the same cells."

"Every month in Quezon City Jail, around two to five inmates die of illness."

The crushing boredom and lack of sleep also leads to inmates developing depression and other mental illnesses.

Dr Narag said his seven years of hell in Quezon City made him determined to talk about the horrors he had witnessed behind bars.

He charted his experience of doing time in a book titled "Freedom and death inside the City Jail";.

In it he describes the squalid conditions and describes the prevalence of bribery, corruption and torture which riddles the prison system.

He says officers have been known to force prisoners to hang like bats from bars for hours, suffocate them with plastic and even electrocute and pour hot candle wax on inmates' genitals.